Gopal Nag elected Mayor of Palampur MC, Raj Kumar his deputy

Gopal Nag and Raj Kumar of the Congress were today elected Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Palampur Municipal Corporation unanimously.

As per the notification of the state urban development department issued in 2021, the term of Mayor and Deputy Mayor the Palampur MC is fixed for two-and-a-half years which expired on October 13 last month. The elections for the Palampur MC were held in April 2021 and the Congress emerged victorious.

2.5-YR TERM ENDED ON OCTOBER 13

The term of the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor of the Palampur MC is fixed for two-and-a-half years which expired on October 13

The elections to the Palampur MC were held in April 2021 and the Congress emerged victorious

Earlier too, both the posts were held by the Congress which has a majority in the House having 13 councillors out of 15, while the BJP has two councillors. For the first term of two-and-a-half years the post of Mayor is reserved for Scheduled Castes candidate while the post of Deputy Mayor is open. For the next tenure of two-and-a-half years, the Mayor is elected from the open quota while the Deputy Mayor is from the ST community.

Ashish Butail, local MLA and Chief Parliamentary Secretary, while addressing media persons here today, said that Mayor and Deputy Mayor were the choice of all the councillors and were elected with single vote. He said Gopal Nag is an experienced Congress worker who has served as panchayat pradhan for two terms having clean image.

CM Launches Wi-Fi service for Palampur town

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh launched the free Wi-Fi facility for Palampur town and with this, the entire Palampur town would be covered under the facility. As many as 51 sites of Wi-Fi have been set up at different places in the town making it the first such town in the State to be fully covered with this facility provided by Reliance-Jio.

Virbhadra Singh said that the State Government would provide Wi-Fi facility in all the Government colleges of the state in near future. He said that the State Government would soon implement the State-level Policy (SLP) for Wi-Fi, which would enable all telecom operators to install Wi-Fi equipment in urban areas of the State to make Himachal Pradesh, the first State to come up with such a policy.

The Chief Minister said that Digitalization and development go hand in hand and the State Government was committed to provide high speed internet access to all its citizens.
He said that launching of this service by Reliance Jio in Palampur and other few Government colleges was a welcome step.

Information Technology and IPH Minister Vidya Stokes appreciated the efforts and said that it would go a long way in strengthening IT services in the State.

IT Advisor to Chief Minister Gokul Butail briefed that as many as 21 Government colleges in the State, Mall Road, Manali, Kotwali Bazar Dharamshala and 17 Bus Stands in the State were connected with Wi-Fi facility provided by the company.

Urban Development Minister, Sudhir Sharma, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Vinay Kumar, MLAs Anirudh Singh, Ram Kumar and Yadvender Goma, senior officers of the State Government  and Reliance -Jio were  also present on the occasion amongst others.

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C.M. inaugurates State level Holi festival at Palampur

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh inaugurated the four day State level Holi festival at Palampur today. He led the impressive ‘Shobha Yatra’ along-with Speaker, Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Brij Bihari Lal Butail and number of other dignitaries.

The procession started from Vikram Batra ground to finally culminate at Gandhi ground amidst beating of drums and trumpets.

Adorned in colourful attires and radiant turbans, the people thronged in numbers to participate in the Shobha Yatra.

Virbhadra Singh also declared open the traditional ‘Chinj’ (Wrestling) by hoisting the ‘Lakhdata Peer’ flag and performed pooja on the occasion. He also blessed the occasion by terming the Chinj as the ancient leisure wrestling bouts which were quite famous amongst the people of the State. He congratulated the people of the area on the occasion of festival of colours. He termed Holi as a festival of fraternity and love and exhorted the people to celebrate Holi in its true spirit. He announced indoor stadium to be opened in Palampur and said that the government was endeavoured to open more such stadiums in the state so that the energy of the youth could be channelised in a better way.

Speaker, Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha, Brij Bihari Lal Butail, also spoke on the occasion and welcomed the Chief Minister and honoured him. He also detailed about the history of the Chinj & Palampur Holi festival and listed the development of the area.

Chairman, Holi Mela Committee, Palampur, Ajit Bhardwaj welcomed and honoured the Chief Minister and other dignitaries on the occasion.

Earlier, the Chief Minister laid foundation stone of Godown of Food Corporation of India (FCI), to have a capacity of 1100 MT at Rani Sidhpur to cost Rs.1.50 crore. Once completed, it will enhance the warehousing facility and cater to the requirements of various public distribution shops in Palampur and its vicinity. He also laid foundation stone of Five-storeyed parking complex to be constructed with an outlay of Rs.4.5 crore which will ease the traffic congestion in the town. He also laid foundation stone of Municipal Council office building, Palampur to cost Rs. 48 lakhs and foundation stone of 33 KV un-manned Electric sub-station at Holta to cost Rs. 3.60 crore to be constructed under Deen Dayal Upadhaya Gramin Yojna. The station when completed will solve the low voltage problem besides minimising distribution and transmission losses and benefit as many as 32 thousand people of 19 panchayats of the area.

The Chief Minister also inaugurated liquid Nitrogen Plant at old semen lab in  Holta completed with an outlay of  Rs.3.60 crore  and inaugurated the Rs. 2.78 crore, Embryo  transfer technology laboratory  at Palampur.   He also announced construction of Mahila Mandal Bhawan in Tanda Panchayat in Palampur.

Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Jagjeevan Pal, MLAs Yadvinder Goma, Kishori Lal, Vice-Chairman, State Forest Corporation, Kewal Singh Pathania, Balbir Tegta, Chairperson, Municipal Council, Palampur, Radha Sood, Deputy Commissioner, Ritesh Chauhan, SP, Sanjeev Gandhi, Vice-Chancellor, HP agriculture University, K.K Katoch and number of other dignitaries accompanied the Chief Minister.

Convocation of CSK Agriculture University Palampur held

Smt. Urmila Singh, Governor who is also the Chancellor of CSK H.P. Agriculture University, Palampur presided over the 12^th Convocation of the University today. Shri Virbhadra Singh, Chief Minister was the Chief Guest on the occasion. The Governor and Chief Minister awarded Masters’ and Doctoral Degrees, Certificates of Honour and Gold Medals to 317 meritorious students present on the occasion out of the total 686 students.

In her presidential address, Smt. Urmila Singh urged the students to keep themselves updated with latest knowledge besides upgrading their skills in order to face all kinds of upcoming challenges effectively in their profession. She said that in order to excel in the field, they should be experts of their subjects. She said that students should be confident and strive to develop a responsible attitude towards their profession and society as well so that we could have responsible and good future citizens.

The Governor said that research was very vital for the growth of agriculture sector and efforts should be made to strengthen this area and intensive research should be conducted for developing new varieties of crops suitable to different climatic conditions besides new techniques helpful for farmers. She said that there was a vast scope for crop diversification and off-season vegetables in the State and the University had significantly contributed towards strengthening the socio-economic standards of the farming community.

Felicitating all the degree recipients on the occasion, Smt Singh urged them to serve the State and Country with dedication through the profession and field they choose to adopt in future. Youth were nation builders in real sense and they play an important role in building a strong and vibrant nation, she added.

She also released a monograph on high precision farming on the occasion.

Chief Minister Shri Virbhadra Singh while speaking on the occasion said that there was a need to develop region specific vegetable varieties for optimum production with low input. Main focus should be on growing vegetable crops, which fetch high market price nationally and internationally.

He said that diversification of crops has been the top priority of our Government and as consequence of implementing policies we have been able to increase the area under vegetable crops including off-season vegetables to about 68000 hectares with a production of 13.56 lakh metric tonnes.  This has brought economic revolution in rural area, he added.

Shri Virbhadra Singh said the growth of vegetable production and horticultural crops of the State was above national average and the State was producing more food grains than its requirement due to improved technologies. The fast adoption of new technologies like polyhouse farming and organic agriculture has further multiplied visibility of the State at the national level, he said. A large number of farmers have come forward to adopt vegetable production and there was need to develop region specific vegetable varieties for optimum production with low input. Main focus should be on growing vegetable crops, which fetch high market price nationally and internationally suggested the Chief Minister.

The Chief Minister said that water harvesting was another priority area of the Government and this should be the focus area for the scientists. The government had accorded high priority to the holistic and sustainable development of rainfed areas through integrated watershed development approach.  The State had also come out with Water Policy as water would be the scarcest resource in the near future, he added.

He advised the scientists to accelerate their efforts for crop improvement, natural resource management, crop production, crop protection, post harvest technology, plant biotechnology and give impetus to strategic research with precision. 

He said about 70 per cent farm operations were being performed by women in the State and  the State had taken a lead by organizing them to self help groups besides linking them with the bank-credit. 

He said that the government had opened educational institutions up to far-flung areas so that children could be able to excel in all competitions and serve the Country. He expressed happiness that this University was the most peaceful in the State.

 “I am not against the students activities in the higher centres of learning provided that they adhere to discipline and not resort in mischiefs” he said. The Government would ensure that even the teachers carry out their responsibilities in a dignified manner and not indulge in politics and the Government would soon come out with a legislation to debar teachers to participate in politics.

Earlier, the Chief Minister inaugurated Rs. 86 Lakh Solid Waste Management project at Surad in GP Lohana in Palampur.

He also laid foundation stone of foreign registration office at Dharamshala to be constructed at a cost of Rs. 1.60 crore.

Earlier, Dr. K.K. Katoch, Vice Chancellor CSK University of Agriculture, welcomed and honoured the Governor and Chief Minister and detailed about the activities being undertaken by the University. He said that the concepts of ‘Earn while you learn’ and ‘Experimental learning’ and ‘Plant Clinics’ have been introduced in the course curricula of the undergraduate programmes. He thanked the Chief Minister for granting additional financial aid to the University

 Shri B.B.L. Butail, Speaker, HP Vidhan Sabha, Shri Sujan Singh Pathania  Agriculture Minister, Shri Sudhir Sharma, Urban Development and Housing Minister, Shri Jagjeevan Pal, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Shri Yadvendra Goma, MLA, Shri Kewal Singh Pathania, Vice-Chairman Forest Corporation Sh Gokul Butail, Advisor IT to Government of Himachal Pradesh, Shri Ratan Gautam, Registrar of CSK University of Agriculture, Senior scientists,  Faculty members, staff and Students of the University were present on the occasion.

Rajnath Singh to inaugurate training camp on Aug 2

BJP president Rajnath Singh will inaugurate a three-day training camp being organised by the party to prepare the state cadres for the 2014 Lok Sabha poll in Palampur on August 2. It will be preceded by a meeting of the state party office bearers. All-India organising secretary Ram Lal, vice-president and in-charge of the party affairs in Himachal Pradesh Balbir Punj, general secretary JP Nadda and senior party leaders Ram Asare and Mahesh Sharma will address the workers.Party spokesperson Ganesh Dutt said former Chief Ministers Shanta Kumar and PK Dhumal, state BJP chief Sat Pal Satti and organising secretary Pawan Rana would be present at the meeting.